Cavalcade of Awesome

EncoreHD showed a marathon of all four Karate Kid movies this past weekend.  In preparation for the new movie, I sat down and watched the entire series.  From Crane kick to the new chick I endured the entirety of this series in one fell sweep (of the leg).

I originally saw the the first three movies in the theater.  I didn’t see Next Karate Kid until several years after it hit video mainly because it looked terrible and secondly, I’m a misogynist.  I remember loving the original, liking Part II but thinking it was a bit boring and really enjoying Part III.  When I watched Part IV on video, I thought it was as bad as I expected it to be.  Let’s see if my thoughts on these movies have changed over the years.

The Karate Kid (1984) – This is a nearly perfect movie.  I enjoyed every moment of every scene.  Despite being just over 2 hours, the movie felt slim and trim.  It starts off with several good action scenes then it begins a slow burn with Daniel’s training finally finishing in a whirlwind set of scenes at the All-Valley Karate Championships.  Macchio is great as Daniel and Elizabeth Shue is cute and fun as Ali.  The best people in the movie, however, are Pat Morita as Miyagi, William Zabka as Johnny and Martin Kove as Kreese.  Morita is wonderfully subtle and humorous as Miyagi.  You always enjoy watching him on screen.  And his fighting scene where he kicks the Cobra Kai’s asses is perfectly done.  Zabka totally owns as the rich douche Johnny Lawrence.  As with his other “bully” roles (Just One of the Guys and Back to School) you almost feel like he enjoys terrorizing and harassing other kids.  And the collection of teens he hangs out with are just as good in their supporting roles.  In this, Zabka is sneeringly wonderful.  And what’s to say about the despicable John Kreese?  He sulks his way through this movie spouting macho platitudes about no fear and no pain and generally getting the audience to hate him.  And he does it well.  This movie most definitely still holds up and I can wholeheartedly recommend this movie even today.  I hope the new movie is as charming and funny as the original (a tall order, I know).

The Karate Kid Part II (1986) – Okay, like I said, when I originally saw this in the theater I thought it was only okay and a tad boring.  The first ten minutes which picks up immediately after the karate tournament is fantastic and may have set the bar a little high.  In that first ten minutes we see John Kreese and the Cobra Kais (yes, all five of the boys return in what is essentially a cameo) arguing about Johnny’s second place.  Kreese starts beating them up then Miyagi steps in and finishes it.  Totally awesome and pretty much better than the rest of the movie.  Anyway, after this, Daniel tags along, uninvited mind you, with Miyagi to visit Okinawa to see his dying father.  While there we meet Sato, Miyagi’s former best friend who now wants to kill him and that best friend’s mean and douchey nephew Chozen.  Sato and Chozen are kind of setup as John Kreese and Johnny Lawrence characters in that they terrorize Miyagi and the village.  This movie reveals an interesting fact about Miyagi’s karate; he enjoys punching people in the crotch.  There’s a scene in this movie where Miyagi teaches Daniel a move where you drop a rag (or something) on the floor and and when you pick it up you use your lower position to punch your opponent in the balls.  Daniel even uses this maneuver on Chozen later on in the movie.  If you remember in the first movie, when Miyagi is beating up the Cobra Kais he totally kicks Dutch in the nuts.  So, essentially, a “shot to the pills” is an official move in Miyagi-Do karate.  That’s good to know; if you ever fight someone taught by Miyagi then protect your loins.  Anyway, everything comes to a head during a hurricane, Sato switches over to the good guys and at the final festival, Daniel has to fight Chozen in a “death match” (why it’s Daniel’s job to fight in this death match, I have no idea).  The fight is slightly better choreography-wise than the first movie, but again it’s straining my own personal believability that Daniel would be able to beat Chozen.  I do like that Daniel actually tries to Crane kick Chozen and it gets blocked.  Makes sense because Chozen was taught by Sato who was taught by Miyagi’s dad, so that technique would be familiar to him.  But the “new” Crane kick, the drum maneuver, is dumb.  And I hate the nose “honk” at the end.  HATE IT.  So, I still think this movie is a bit boring.  I don’t honestly care a lot about the story, it’s not as personal to me as the first movie.  And I have trouble understanding why it’s Daniel’s responsibility to fight Chozen to the death.  Daniel has nothing to do with it.  For me, except for the first 10 minutes, this movie was mildly entertaining at best and boring at worst.

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